Thursday, 21 May 2009

Art of Title (Keyframes) - 1

1. Costumes and Props - This clip shows the cop and one of the thugs. The cop (foreground) is hard as nails. So I gave him a leather jacket and a beanie hat to hide his face. The rest of his outfit is hidden from view in his shot. The other man (the thug) I put in a shirt and jeans. This gave him a 'bouncer' style look. Which I also gave to the other thug. He is holding a pistol finishing off the thug/aggressive look.

2. Visual Effects - This shot is when my main cop shoots his pistol. I used detonation films to get a gun shot muzzle flash and used AfterEffects to make it look like it was coming out of the gun barrel. A couple of seconds later the bullet fired from the gun flies into the screen. Again, I used AfterEffects to create this effect.

3. Typography - This image is taken from the credits at the very start of the sequence. I added some animation to it. In this the 'Xander Matthews'' moves left and the 'Film' moves right. I used AfterEffects to make all of the titles for my film.

4. Transitions - This is a shot that continues throughout the film. It separates the other shots that are fast and loud. It has an eery silence about it which gives the other shots much more impact. I decided to class it as a transition because I use it as a bridge between the other shots.

5. Lighting - This was the shot where the camera is looking down on the cop badge. It was actually surprisingly hard to get the shot right, as the lighting was often wrong and it took us a few shots to get the writing on the badge in focus. But adjusting the position of the badge and using a coat to create a bit of a shadow, we were able to make the shot work. The rest of the film was shot entirely using natural light.

6. Setting - This shot represents the setting of our piece nicely as is shows the type of location we were filming in. It was a grotty, half run-down car park that looked on it's last legs. I chose the shot because of the dirty steps, and cracked walls that gives the audience the feeling of this depressed, broken atmosphere.

7. Framing - I like the framing of this shot. It took me a while to set it up to get both sides of the wall. I first filmed it with only one side of the wall in view of the camera. However I decided that this shot didn't really represent the urgency of the character as: A. The audience didn't see him running for long enough and B. The fact you couldn't exactly see where he was running to didn't give the audience a big enough sense of urgency. In this shot you can see both sides of the wall to give the impression of it being just another alley-way. It makes them think that there is no escape as they can see the character just continuing to run down the same road/pathway.

8. Camera Movement - This was a very hard tracking shot to film. It involved a lot of tracking fast camera movement. We eventually decided that we would just run with the camera. We had to film it several times to get it right and it didn't turn out perfectly but it definitely wasn't bad. Also, the shakiness of the camera added to the urgency and desperation I was trying to portray, so it turned out rather well.

9. Narration - In the film there was no narration read. However, this clip describes some of the story-line. A lone cop on a bench minding his own business but being confronted by two thugs. Even though there is no actual sound of talking in the film, this is the shot (along with the ones straight after it) that best represents what the people are feeling.